I wrote this earlier today. I’m doing better now thanks to my wife. She knows when something is wrong and she is the one I can truly talk to. She listens to me and helps me see things differently than how my bipolar brain makes me see things, especially during crisis. It is because of her that I’m still here. It wasn’t prayer. Keine Engel kamen um zu helfen. It wasn‘t some high-priced, over-paid, overrated shrink. It was my wife… her compassion and love for me that saved me. I‘m now experiencing the feeling of washout and emotional exhaustion that comes after crisis, but I‘m here to feel it. Being at the mercy/whim of poorly controlled bipolar disorder is exhausting. Trying to control a mind hijacked by disorder is like trying to herd cats… 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Sometimes I‘m doing pretty good, and sometimes, like

If you’re wanting or already beginning a career in counseling (as in therapist, counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist, etc) please examine yourself first as well as your motivations. If you can’t find even basic compassion within yourself for individuals who do not fit into your personal idea of what a “good” person should be, such as sharing your personal religious views, political views, views regarding social norms,… basically your own personal worldview then please choose another career. Seriously. For the best interest of everyone involved, if you can’t find compassion within yourself for those who hold vastly different views than yourself, you have no business in the mental health field.

A Very Bad Experience
I say this because of a recent experience with a “counselor”. When you feel worse about things after the session than you did before it and that bad feeling and low mood persists for days because of the session then

I am frequently reminded, and astounded, of and by the power of the mind. In some of my posts I’ve touched on this subject, but not too much because it’s something that isn’t easy to post for the entire world to read. Stress and anxiety. It is truly astounding how devastating these things are. Especially for someone with any type of anxiety disorder, whether that be OCD, GAD, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, or any other. When these things get out of control one becomes paralyzed with the all-consuming dread and extremely intense fear or even full out panic attacks. You simply can’t function. If you don’t have a way to control it it only gets worse, not better.
I’ve been dealing with this for the last month and it has been hell. Although usually always present to some degree or another I usually have it under control. But sometimes

Lesson learned. Don’t allow stress to overwhelm you. After almost three weeks of not knowing what was going on with me, feeling unwell, feeling tired and weak, unable to sleep well (or at all some nights), appetite changes, palpitations and so on I’m now finally feeling better and have an understanding of what had happened to me. I was completely overwhelmed by stress to the point that it was making me physically ill. I even went for a ride today after almost three weeks out of the saddle. It was amazing and reminded me of all the reasons I ride a motorcycle and don’t even own a car.
I am fortunate in that I am able to work from home, but even with that I wasn’t able to get much done. I also managed to write a few posts to this blog, but the whole experience was terrible. A silver lining,

Being torn apart from the inside. The darkest state of existence. Feeling drained, empty, and void. Not just looking into but actually falling into the abyss. Beyond sad. All these and many more are apt descriptions of clinical depression, or major depressive disorder. All, or almost all, joy found in life vanishes. Often the absolute hell of anxiety and/or panic attacks sets in. It becomes impossible to function normally. It can take a monumental effort of sheer will to simply get out of bed. It feels like you are constantly moving through an invisible thick molasses both mentally and physically. At other times your mind is racing so fast because of anxiety that analytical, coherent thought processes are washed away in a tsunami of fear/panic. You become aware of literally every sensation regarding your body and often zero in on one, such as your heart or a pain somewhere and